Victorian Era Military Photographs & Other Historical Musings

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Fragments of the Old West – The Gamblers

One last excursion into the Old West (for now) before moving on to other areas of hopfully historical interest.

Above: An 1870s vintage 1/6th plate tintype of four Old West types who would not look out of place in any saloon setting. The older gent sitting at left in the silk top hat is a character right out of a Hollywood casting department call. He looks more than a little like actor John Carradine. Source: Collection of Edward T. Garcia/soldiersofthequeen.com

This 1/6th plate tintype features a cast of characters who would not look out of place around a poker table in Luke Short’s Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City or in a poker game the Oriental in Tombstone, Arizona. The local could just as easily have been Deadwood or El Paso.

This image dates from around the late 1870s. Each man in completely distinct from others in the group and whether or not they were gamblers as implied is open for question. Who they were and what relationship brought them together for the photograph will probably never be known but it is fascinating to speculate are to what their association may have been.

Above: Actor John Carradine as James Barrow McBride in The Mind Reader, a 1959 episode of ABC Television series The Rifleman. Image: ABC Television/riflemanconnors.com.

Above: while poker was played in the Old West, contrary to depictions in Hollywood westerns it was not as popular as commonly believed. Faro – pictured above – was by far the card game most encountered in gambling halls and saloons. Today the easily played game is virtually extinct possibly due to the low house odds when played fairly.